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Fed up with Iran

In 1981 Israel bombed a nuclear plant in Iraq to stop it from developing nuclear weapons.

While the world powers shy away from Iran - for various reasons - and its mad pursuit toward nuclear weapons, I would not fault Israel if it decided to deal with this problem in the way it did before ("Defiantly, Iran starts uranium program," Jan. 11).

A.J. Scott, Draguignan, France

Sudanese in Egypt

The editorial from The Boston Globe "The Cairo massacre" (Jan. 9), on the tragic confrontation between Sudanese demonstrators and the Egyptian police in Cairo, raises several valid concerns. But your contention that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had declared that "nobody was to blame for the loss of life" is incorrect.

Within a few hours of the deadly confrontation, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, issued a widely publicized statement expressing his shock and sadness and noting "there is no justification for such violence and loss of life."

Egyptian authorities immediately criticized UNHCR for rushing to judgment. Asked later at a Cairo press conference why the UNHCR statement "blamed Egyptian authorities," a UNHCR spokesperson noted that the statement did not specifically apportion blame. This response was misreported by some media outlets as a declaration by UNHCR that "nobody was to blame."

UNHCR is ready to cooperate with any inquiry into this tragedy, and the high commissioner has determined that we will - as is our standard practice - also conduct our own internal review and oversight.

Throughout the three-month demonstration in Cairo by 2,500 Sudanese, UNHCR staff spent hundreds of hours explaining to the protesters what could and could not be done. UNHCR cannot resettle everyone who demands it, as the editorial implies. There simply are not enough host countries in the world today willing to take the huge number of refugees who would opt for resettlement if they could get it. Thus, host governments insist that among the millions of Sudanese now in Egypt, the very limited number of available resettlement places must go to the most vulnerable.

Ron Redmond, Geneva Chief spokesman, office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Light reading, for once

While drowning in the habitual flow of the world's on-going calamities, we were suddenly greeted by the levity you served in the Jan. 7 edition with articles by Garrison Keillor ("The cold truth about my vacation," Meanwhile) and M.P. Dunleavey ("What money can't buy").

Does this signal the possibility that laughter may sit alongside our constant drone of bad news? I hope so.

E.C. Jacobson, Paris

Israel's politics

Mark Heller's assumption that the political center will hold and that Ariel Sharon's newly formed Kadima Party will win in the March 2006 elections is just that - an assumption ("Yes, Israel's center will hold," Views, Jan. 8).

The likelihood now is of increasing Palestinian terrorism as more and more Qaeda personnel make their home in Gaza.

In this case, it is also likely that the Israeli public will look to the most experienced candidate, in terms of security, and support former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Shalom Freedman, Jerusalem

Wrong guy for the job

I was delighted to read of the establishment of the new "Police Ethics and Leadership Institute" in Baghdad ("Bush warns his critics about debate on Iraq," Jan. 11).

Too bad that Americans will not be taking the lessons. Instead, the people who brought us Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and secret East European prisons will be conducting the courses.

I expect an upcoming newspaper will bring reports of Tom DeLay offering courses in political ethics.